By Kelly Pickerel SolarWorld Americas has supplied 14.2 MWdc of its high-performance solar panels for a project in Nevada that combines complementary solar and geothermal power generation.
The project at Patua, about 40 miles east of Reno, has set the solar array beside a binary geothermal production plant to take advantage of solar’s peak performance periods at times when the geothermal is comparatively less efficient – during the daytime and summer. The combined result provides constant power generation. While not the first, the project is thought to be the biggest of its kind. On an AC basis, the 2-year-old Patua geothermal installation is about